Ethics

Ethics is the branch of axiology – one of the four major branches of philosophy, alongside metaphysics, epistemology, and logic – which attempts to understand the nature of morality; to define that which is right from that which is wrong. The Western tradition of ethics is sometimes called moral philosophy.

The first social science

Assumptions about ethical underpinnings of human behaviour are reflected in every social science, including: anthropology because of the complexities involved in relating one culture to another, economics because of its role in the distribution of scarce resources, political science because of its role in allocating power, sociology because of its roots in the dynamics of groups, law because of its role in codifying ethical constructs like mercy and punishment, criminology because of its role in rewarding ethical behaviour and discouraging unethical behaviour, and psychology because of its role in defining, understanding, and treating unethical behaviour.

Related Topics:
Social science - Anthropology - Culture - Economics - Political science - Power - Sociology - Law - Mercy - Punishment - Criminology - Psychology

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Ethics has also been extended to the hard sciences, such as biology (as bioethics) and ecology (as environmental ethics). As these fields become more complex and deal with more situations, the application of ethics in those fields can also become more complex.

Related Topics:
Biology - Bioethics - Ecology - Environmental ethics

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In analytic philosophy, ethics is traditionally divided into three fields: Meta-ethics, Normative ethics (including value theory and the theory of conduct) and applied ethics – which is seen to be derived, top-down, from normative and thus meta-ethics.

Related Topics:
Analytic philosophy - Meta-ethics - Normative ethics - Value theory - Theory of conduct - Applied ethics

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